


Dancing with the Wolf

by Calwyn



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Modern Girl in Thedas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-04-26 18:33:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calwyn/pseuds/Calwyn
Summary: One day I wake up in Thedas. It isn't a dream and I don't know why. And I have... memories. Of walking among the aravels, of running through the woods under this foriegn sky.But I know this place, and I know the future. How long will it take me to realise this world is real? How long before the dread wolf catches my scent?





	1. All New, Faded for Her

I start thinking this.

It isn’t a dream.

It sounds ironic, but it’s true, dreams are familiar to me. I know their ways, know when the fog blurs the corners of my awareness, I could shape them when I needed and turn away from nightmares into the lighter spaces. I know I am not dreaming because the air is sharp, and I feel the stone under me. I know I am awake, because my mind reaches for the soft places of a dream and finds only confusion and awareness. 

I shiver in the cold of open air, T-shirt and underpants poor protection against the chill laden air. Snow in Thedas was still snow after all. 

How do I know it is Thedas? The very air whispered it to me. That same exaggerated awareness that causes me so much trouble on earth seems to mean something else here. 

However, knowing something is real, and being really, properly,  _ aware  _ of it are two very different things. Because of this I simply standd there shivering in the cold, numb feet in the snow and starting to throb, hugging my arms about me. 

I listen to the wind, as it whispers about fire on the ice, and steel boots in the grass. It means very little. Perhaps it is simply glad to speak.

“Hello?” My ridiculous first word, thrust tentatively forwards as though it might shatter this reality like a soap bubble. My heart thuds in its wake, fear and hope and horrible guilt burning in my chest. I fight every urge to cling to this reality, and I do something I am very glad of. I stand, I wait, I  _ hope  _ with every fiber of my being to return to my bed and warm arms around me. I give my heart directions proper true, and let it carry me from this place.

Except… nothing. My heart is beating in my chest that was freezing in the snow and with the something else that comes with losing everything. 

At least I tried. I had tried with everything. My heart knows its course, and that I know with certainty. I could feel the warmth carried there. This kept me sane. I had never given up. My heart had not carried me here. This was very important somehow. 

In and out I breathed. Thedas and mountains and snow, the frostbacks, the conclave? Who could know. I see nothing but snow and trees. My feet are aching, but not so badly as they could have been. How long have I been standing here? Long enough to know I’m not safe standing half naked in the mountains. 

My entire body feels… wrong… foreign… humming through with a kind of jittery energy. My first steps send me darting forwards in a bound, and I am aware of a gazelle-like spring to my stride as I fly with unnatural speed across the snow. It feels  _ right,  _ like running over river stones as a child, every step a prayer of instinct, a dance that taps the skin of the earth. 

I am laughing as I run through the morning, wind whistling past my ears. I don’t need to move my hand to feel their strange length, the sensitive curve to a point, I can  _ feel  _ it; my hand reaches up anyway, as I jerk to a sudden halt. Smooth skin, tapering to a point, I shiver at the unfamiliar and vibrant sensation, breathing. 

An elf,  _ elvhen,  _ this is  _ right, this is who I am.  _

An unfamiliar feeling is bubbling inside me. Everything is unfamiliar. I raise my hand and the memory of flame burns blue and bright with barely a thought. Of course, because I understand it. I call to it across the veil and it comes. 

I can feel the veil, too, like a shimmer across thought, across reality itself. I can run my thoughts along it. I don’t like to touch it, but watching it was fascinating, like trying to see a mirage inside your thoughts, inside your own vision. Of course, nothing you  _ see  _ is actually  _ there,  _ so it is all thought in the end. Bouncing, blurring, forming…

You shut your eyes and breathe. You wondered if this was what Solas had meant by the veil being disorienting, you can still remember his words clear as day. 

“What  _ is  _ here,” Cole had asked.

“ _ Feel _ the ground, the breath in your lungs, fabric rustling against your skin.”

I reach out to the snow and the cold and the breath that sighs in and out of my chest. I feel the fabric under my fingers. Here I am. 

I am shivering, and almost without feeling I tug at the veil and pull more  _ possibility  _ through, wrapping myself in a layer; it is almost too easy to allow a trickle of energy to speed up the molecules of the air, to form a thin barrier holding the air against your skin. I wonder if this is what the spirit in the Vir Dirthara meant, knowing the rhythms and rules of the earth. You don’t need to fight reality itself to form your desires. I fight the urge to laugh again. Who knew a physics degree would be so useful in Thedas.

The reality of the situation still isn’t sinking in. But here I am so I continue forwards. I am downright warm now, snow melting beneath my feet. Not freezing to death then. Yay.

I spot a very familiar logging stand behind a copse of trees, and sigh. Ram footprints in the snow? Check. Jumping forwards through the snow I am surprised to spot a long wooden barrier and a gate, frozen lake to the right? Check. 

Sighing and quite forgetting I’m simply on another playthrough, I trudge through the gate and around the hut to pick up Master Taigans notes. Why not? 

I stomp into the hut and choke on a cloud of smoke, eyes burning. The world tilts alarmingly and I hear a startled shout from inside the hut. I stumble away from the smoke, coughing as the burning spreads down my throat. Hands grip my shoulders, I am distantly aware of this. 

Then I pass out. 

 

When I come to, I am suddenly keenly aware of being carried. I hear clanking, and the hands that carry me are rough and armoured. I open my eyes and stare up to see a very unhappy guard pointedly looking anywhere  _ but  _ at me. I am suddenly keenly aware of the fact that I am… still dressed in nothing but underwear and a now  _ very  _ oversized T-shirt with ‘the invincible iron-man’ typed on it. Why… why… why… This was not a good start to, you know, whatever this was. 

Okay, so what I had done had been beyond stupid. Recalling a cloud of what was probably some explosive gas released during Taigans fireball experiments; I note that this must be pre-conclave. Even worse. I don’t have a clue what is going on right now. I consider the possibility that I am just going insane; I kind of like that option, it’s plausible, and less stressful. 

The guard must have noticed me squirm because he glances down before blushing red and looking strictly away again. “Sorry Miss, master Taigan told us you inhaled some sedative of some sort, asked us to take you someplace... “ he coughed. “You might get decent. He figured you were attacked by bandits.”

Something was distinctly weird about being talked to. You kind of waited, hoping some dialogue options would appear. Nope. Anxiety spiked. Communication and all that are not easy for me. And what was I supposed to say? 

I shake my head, “Ummm nope, no bandits, I’m okay.”

I shiver at the sound of my voice, or rather,  _ not  _ my voice. It was closer to the voice in gameplay, though not entirely the same. That was way creepy. If anything that was much more unnerving than anything else so far. I felt myself starting to hyperventilate. 

The guard frowned down at you. “No bandits? What happened to you?”

“I don’t know! I just appeared back there in the snow! I was asleep and…” my voice starts building into something like hysterics and I can’t breathe. 

“Taigen said you might be disoriented, delirious. Hush, relax. I promise you’ll be safe.”

His tone was so kind, so concerned, that it startled me into tears. I’m not sure why. Even in my own world… such genuine concern was hard to come by. And everything was  _ wrong.  _ My  _ voice,  _ my  _ body,  _ was this even me any more? Was I truly insane? Was I in a hospital bed somewhere, dying? Did that mean I might not even exist soon?

I held onto his arm and sobbed, and didn’t stop sobbing. Why even care anymore. I was so  _ tired  _ of being afraid. The weird thrill that had burned through me upon waking was fading fast. I wanted my bed, my duvet, the quiet, my music… I wanted to hide in a hole. 

The man pats me awkwardly, and says “there, there.” We step through a door into a warm room. I peer up and around Flissa’s tavern, still shaking with tears. What I see makes me freeze.

The egg. The fucking egg. Is sitting at a table. Looking at me. I have tears dripping down my cheeks, and i’m being carried in my undies and an ironman T-shirt. 

This was not okay.

This was a long way from okay. 

“What are you looking at,” I say rudely, shattered bits of fictional heartbreak slapping me in the feels. When he promptly looks away, politely too, I burst into a fit of hysteria. Something about the dread-egg politely averting his eyes from me just pushes me over the edge. I lean back in the guards arms and gasp for air, world spinning. It’s around this point that I realise I might not have been unaffected by Taigans stupid gas after all. 

“Oh my! Is she alright?” I hear Flissa’s worried voice approaching. If anything this makes me laugh more. This. Whole. Thing. Is. Insane. 

I want to reply  _ ‘No, obviously!’  _ but I have no air and just settle for wheezing an extra bit of mirth in there. Yep. Insane. Question answered. 

“She got a lungful of whatever Taigans mixing up in his cottage. Just appeared outside, he says.”

“A Dalish, here?” She asked, clearly bewildered. 

This interrupted my laughter. Something very odd was happening. It felt… bad. It felt very bad.  _ Dalish?  _ Yes of course i’m dalish. Marethari… No! What?

_ Mythal enaste, protect me, what is… _

I was just in bed. “I’m NOT” I yell, unable to control my volume. 

I hear a gasp of shock, you don’t care,  _ what is going on.  _

“Not what?” That’s not the guards voice. Fen’Harel, damn him, couldn’t mind his own business. 

I fix him with the biggest stink-eye I can summon. “ _ Dalish.” _

He just nods, face a blur that fades in and out against the background of the wall. “Your vallaslin. Whose?”

“June,” I whisper. I remember the lines on my face, clear as day. Too clear. The sting on my cheeks.  _ Must not cry out.  _

_ That isn’t me! _

I look down at my T-shirt. Familiar. Red polyester. 

They sit me at a table with the dread wolf. Probably thinking he can make more sense of me. Because he talks like he knows the Dalish. Dalish like me, like my clan  _ gliding through the planes. The halla like my laughter.  _

_ Dread wolf,  _ the name strikes fear in my belly, an image of ripping teeth and fear in the dark. A silly fear, false, he’s a good wolf. Aside from threatening to burn the world. The fear in me is not reassured by that last part.

He catches my cheeks, turns my face to his. “Please, look out, past me.”

That face burns you like a knife. Like a screenshot staring out. So beautiful. So much sorrow, but not yet.

“This is more than mere disorientation.” He murmurs. “Where was she found?”

“ Outside haven, around the lake to Taigans hut.”

“Was there any disturbance?”

“None”

The stupid egg humms with interest. The sound prods at my pain and makes me feel like one of those stone tablets on his desk in the rotunda. An experiment. I am nothing to him and it hurts.

“She should rest, in the meantime” he talks like i’m not here, in front of him. Accurate, I suppose. I feel like i’m floating in the air, looking down.

“Are you a healer?”

“Of sorts,” he replies, that nearly invisible hum of amusement in his voice. I imagine nobody else can hear it. 

“Perhaps Flissa could take her to your cabin?” there was hope in the guards voice. “If you have experience in these matters?”

There was a brief silence, and the guard backtracked as he realised what a request he had just made of a complete stranger. “I apologise, messere, I forget myself…”

Flissa chimed in, “I could-”

Solas hummed again considering. “I have my own business to attend to, but…”

I pass out on the table before I can object. I wonder if he did that, or if I was just that pathetic.


	2. Lets Mess with Corypheus

I forget where I am when I wake up. For a moment I am back in bed, peaceful, wrapped in my duvet and blissfully warm. The moment doesn’t last long. The blanket tucked firmly around me is unfamiliar and light, scented softly with unfamiliar herbs. My mind spins as I try to make sense of my surroundings, and I sit up too fast, world jabbing my eyes and blood rushing from my head. 

Wherever I am, it’s dark. The air smells like pine. I stare down at my strangely elongated limbs and remember the day before. I don’t recognise myself. I know that if I was to look in the mirror, I wouldn’t know the face looking back at me. I shiver, hoping that was true. Strange memories rolled through the back of my mind, faces I didn’t know, places i’d never been.

Glancing around the room, I saw a simple table, a bench of vegetables, a familiar inscription pinned to the wall. My breath left me, and my eyes found the prone figure at the desk. Solas. I couldn’t stop myself staring, wondering what he was doing. Waiting for Corypheus to blow himself up, I supposed. Waiting for hundreds of innocents to die, for the future to go up in flames.

“We aren’t even people to you,” she had said to him, voice breaking, her heart breaking with it. 

“Not at first,” he had replied. 

Not now. Right now he hadn’t learned. I couldn’t help wondering when he had. 

I was torn. I didn’t know what this was. A good percentage of me wanted to throw vegetables at him and just yell how he should know, he  _ should know.  _ He walked the fade and saw all our hopes and dreams, but we weren’t good enough. And in the end, we still weren’t worth saving, not to him. I wondered how hard it was for him to make that choice, to leave you to die. Was it like losing a prized horse,  _ a pet,  _ something you could sacrifice for the greater good. 

I realised I was shaking. I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t lie to him. I couldn’t pretend any of this made sense. I doubted I could even stop him killing me once he saw the recognition in my eyes, the way they spat the word  _ Felassan. You killed Felassan. You left me to die. But I can’t hate you. I can’t do anything but… _

I slide silently from the blanket, inch towards the door. I half expect him to wake. ‘In both places’ Cole had said. It felt like he was watching you sneak towards the door, place a hand on the handle,  _ slowly eke the door open.  _

He never stirs, not even a twitch. I ease the door shut, looking down at myself. I’m in a plain brown dress that doesn’t fit me, and scratches at my skin uncomfortably, but at least i’m dressed. 

I run, leaping like a gazelle, over the fence and out around the perimeter. I know this place like the back of my hand, and it is a simple job to avoid the lights and the main gate. I can melt the snow for water, I can stay warm without any trouble, and I munch on an apple I stole from Solas’ bench. I feel vaguely more optimistic than I would normally about taking my chances alone in the snow, though the possibility of wild animals has me skittish. In game I only ever saw rams and nugs near Haven, and I pray that holds accurate.

I make sure to be a good way out along the road before I slow, tossing my apple core and thinking. I refuse to freak out. I refuse to hang out in Solas’ hut. I  _ would  _ refuse to be in this situation, I suppose, but I can’t help but feel… thrilled. Terrified too, but mostly to appease my sense of what was appropriate to be feeling when one wakes up in another universe. Thrilled was a good emotion. It kept at bay all the darker ones that usually stalked me, that boiled in the pit of my stomach. I ignored them. I was good at that sometimes. Especially while jogging down a moonlit road to  _ somewhere in Thedas.  _ Where was I going? The Conclave? I supposed it was the only real destination. The sky was whole, and Solas was lurking nearby, so it had to be soon. 

I could see a glow on the horizon, and something inside me  _ knew.  _ That was it. The night seemed a lot more scary when I considered that Corypheus might be sneaking around in it somewhere. I tried not to think about that, and began to run again, flying over the snow.                                  

I had no idea what this alternate universe was, but I knew things were going to get bad. I had memories of Deshanna, of clan Lavellan, rattling around in my head, did that mean Corypheus was my job? 

Messing with Solas seemed like an awful idea. Painful, even in a world that didn’t quite feel real. Messing with Corypheus sounded like fun. 


	3. The Warden

The plan was nonexistent really. It isn’t too long before I am approaching the bridge, out of breath but otherwise fine. It isn’t far from here, out and through the gate, I can see the torches glowing. 

I have no idea how to get in. I stand for a moment, watching, starlight on my skin and icy landscape gleaming. I almost turn away into the wilderness, the hills and wilds that call to my bones, away from people and pain. But then I discard the notion, as quickly as it came; for all you know the disaster could be today, and  _ then  _ what would be the point. Besides, I really had no idea how to hunt, I might able to figure out some kind of magic solution, but I’d rather not find out somewhere in the mountains surrounded by wild animals. I ignore the whispers of my memories, telling me of course I know, I have hunted many times before.  _ I have never hunted, shut up.  _

There were guards that shouted as I approached, and I tense, waiting for them to flash red and half expecting a combat soundtrack to start up in the background. 

“Hold! What is your business here?”

I stop in front of them, feeling utterly ridiculous. I was a random elf, with vallaslin too apparently, trying to get into the conclave. What would persuade them to let me in? What did I want to achieve?

I hold up my hands in a gesture of peace. “I don’t have any weapons! I have a message for the Left Hand, and it’s urgent!” I try to sound like I have some idea what I am doing. I’m betting that these guards can’t just outright ignore news of a potential threat. “The conclave is in danger!”

Now that really gets their attention. One of the guards advances on me and grabs my arm  _ roughly;  _ it  _ hurts.  _

“Ow!” I exclaimed. “Don’t be so rude! I’m trying to help!”

“If you’re one of the Nightingale's, you’d know the passphrase. Who are you trying to fool, knife ear. What’s the Dalish interest in this?” The man’s voice was  _ not  _ friendly.

Well… crap. This was going south, fast.

“I don’t have a passphrase, I wasn’t meant to be here at all!” I protest, trying to sound convincing. “I have to report to the left hand, you’re all in danger! Fetch her here if you must! What will happen to you when they find out you ignored warning of an attack!”

Both guards stare nervously at one another, “Leliana isn’t here,” the other guard says. “Seeker Cassandra hasn’t yet returned from Kirkwall.”

Ugh, this just continued to get worse and worse. Of course she wasn’t here, it’s not like she blew up with the rest of them. 

“Then who do I report to,” I try to sound impatient. 

A moment of silence, and then, “Come with us.”

Yes! The guards weren’t complete idiots.

They frog-march me through the gate, and my breath catches. It is beyond strange to see the Temple of Sacred Ashes standing whole and imposing before me. I can barely recognise it from Origins, it is honestly enormous, towering above, solid like the stone under your feet. The idea of a blast that could rip the building apart, reduce it to nothing but smoldering ruins…

I shudder, trying not to think about the fact that I was currently  _ walking into said building _ despite knowing full well that it might blow up at any second. The game never gave much of a hint as to  _ when  _ the explosion occurred, at least, none that I could think of. 

Although… I remember that Master Taigan had died at the conclave with the rest of them, and he had still been experimenting in his hut. Not tonight then, most likely, and I breathed a sigh of relief. This place wasn’t real enough to me yet, for me to fear death, but to have whatever this was cut so short would be disappointing. And dying in horrible agony wasn’t a great idea, no matter what  _ this  _ was, I imagined; it’s not like that was ever a positive result, whether it was part of some alternate reality dream or not.

I am shoved into a room, and I get to wait while the guards flip a coin over who got to wake someone to deal with this. The guard that lost groaned and trudged from the room, leaving me with just one angry guard for company. 

I ignored him. I had no idea what conversation I would be expected to make with a man in armour looking like he’d want nothing more than to run me through with the sword he wore; I see his hand twitch towards it every so often, a cheery thought that I pointedly ignore. 

“What kind of attack?” He asks eventually, clearly losing a war with curiosity. 

“An explosion,” I reply, thinking this wasn’t the best time to go into particulars.

The man frowned, and straightened, “what, like in Kirkwall?”

I can’t prevent the startled jerk, “What, no!” Gods, this would get so much worse if they just pinned more fear on the mages. “There’s an infiltrator, a… man. With an explosive device. Some ancient relic.”

I was relieved to hear footsteps, a sound that snapped the guard to attention and spared me from his incredulous gaze. 

“She’s in here, Warden.”

No!

_ No, no, no,  _ could my luck get any worse. Somehow I keep from jumping out of my chair at the first  _ familiar  _ face. Thick red hair and broad face over a blue-silver uniform, piercing eyes.  _ Of course  _ they were in the security here,  _ how else  _ does a magister sneak into an overly paranoid gathering of mages and templars. 

My throat is dry with fear in that gaze, somehow I wasn’t  _ really  _ afraid before now, but those eyes pinned me down like an insect under a microscope. I was  _ here  _ and I knew those eyes were noting my discomfort when they gleam with something predatory. 

“W.. warden,” my voice shakes, I control the urge to run for the door. “I was hoping for…”  _ anyone else,  _ “someone in charge.”

The man smiles, and sits opposite me. I would never imagine he had just woken. Maybe he had been caught during some sneaky magister business. I hope so.

“The wardens were summoned as a neutral party to handle security during the proceedings. Due to the… politically sensitive nature of this gathering.” That smile was not friendly. “I assure you, the wardens are more than capable of keeping this gathering safe from any  _ attack  _ that you are here to warn of.”

I feel the breath leaving me, I am breathing in gasps and I  _ can’t help it.  _ There is panic flooding me. He could lean forwards and impale me on that sword and I could do nothing. The guards would never care.  _ Oh god I’m going to die. _

“Whatever he’s told you, it’s a lie!” I nearly shout this. I don’t know how to lie, I don’t know how to deceive, I throw the truth like a knife, my only defence. “Corypheus serves the blight, can’t you sense it? He will never end the cycle, he’s going to destroy the world!”

Whatever the Warden had been expecting, that was clearly not it. He jerked half out of his chair, face drained of blood, eyes bulging. “What?”

“If you help him with his ritual, he’s going to-” I am cut off.

“You know nothing!” he hisses, leaning towards me. There is a manic gleam in his eye. The air grows cold around me. “You couldn’t ever understand what it means to…” he shakes his head, sudden awareness in his gaze. He turns to the guards, “I will handle this. Leave.”

“No!” I shout, “It’s the wardens, they-”

A fist slams into my skull, knocking me clear from my chair and crashing me against the wall. I taste blood, the world is spinning, dancing, grey. 

“My lord!” one guard exclaims, “what?”

Another blow, and I choke out a suffocated cry of pain as my bone grates jarringly on stone. My jaw is on fire, the world is dancing. 

“Filthy knife-ear spewing lies about the order,” I hear the warden growling, as if from a distance. 

_ It hurts. Oh my god it hurts. It shouldn’t hurt so much.  _

I whimper, try to drag myself up from the floor. The face of the guard above me doesn’t look concerned, he just shrugs and leaves. 

For the second time in far too short a span of hours, I fall into darkness.


	4. Corypheus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saving the Divine.

I’m crying as I wake, the pain is throbbing, impossible, real. My jaw burns as I move and whimper. I am shaking so hard that I struggle to move, disconnected, juddering against the stone. 

“Shut up, will you,” snarls a voice.

Turning over, I see bars, darkness, flickering lamplight. 

“ _ Shem, _ ” I spit, violent, bitter feeling surging inside. “ _ Ma din’an him.” _

The guardsman stirs in the shadows, comes closer. “Silence knife-ear! Or I’ll shut you up myself, I swear!”

I roll to face the wall, silenced more by the foreign words flying from my mouth than a single rude guard. I cover my mouth with my hands,  _ where am I, who am I…  _ I remember running with the Aravels, hunting in the woods, turning on my computer and watching all these things from a distance, in my mind…

I moan involuntarily. My head feels like it’s going to explode, and  _ nothing makes sense.  _

The conclave is going to explode and if I don’t do something fast, a lot of people are going to die. Including me.

“If you have a shred of self preservation instinct, you will listen when I tell you that the wardens are here to kill Divine Justinia.” I pull myself upright. “I don’t care what else you do right now. But you  _ need to warn the Divine.  _ She cannot trust the wardens, or go anywhere with them alone.”

The guard snorts, but the sound is a little uncertain. “Warden said you’d say something like that. Said you were undermining the Conclave.” He spits to the side, scowling. “I’m not to listen to a word you say.”

I roll my eyes and heave myself to my feet. Once i’m standing I feel a little better. I can deal with pain. “Do you have a brain in there somewhere?” I can’t hide the dirision in my tone. “A warden throws a prisoner in a cell. A prisoner that arrived at the conclave at the request of  _ the left hand,  _ to warn of sabotage by the wardens. And you are going to do nothing because a  _ warden  _ told you to.”

The guard actually seems a little thrown by this, and I feel like cheering. Success. Throwing around the left hands name seemed to be a good way to put people on edge. Knowing Leliana, it wasn’t surprising.

When the guard actually heads for the door, my panic returns. “Please don’t!”

He stops and stares at me. “What are you on about  _ now _ !”

I chew my lip, and then wince, ow, bad idea. “They  _ expect  _ me to tell you this. If you rush out there now, they will probably kill you.”

The guards eyes nearly pop out of his head. I honestly don’t blame him. I wouldn’t enjoy that kind of news either. He hesitates, and then returns to his seat, looking pale. 

“You better not be messing with me,” he warns me, frown returning. “Disruption, chaos. You’re Dalish, you’re probably here to make sure the war never ends.”

“I’m sure” I say dryly. “Keep the divine from having alone time with the wardens, and the conclave is sure to fail.”

He shut up at that. 

The door slams open a moment later. “Soldier, you are reassigned. The wardens will oversee the cells from now on.”

The guard looked relieved, saluting and briskly retreating from the room. Hopefully he would do something intelligent. I flop over on my side and try to look incoherent as footsteps stalk into the room. 

For all I knew I had been unconscious long enough that the explosion  _ was  _ imminent. I try to think what I would be telling myself to do if I was sitting behind the computer screen, something  _ clever _ . I am wracking my brains when I hear a key turning in the lock, and the door to my cell swinging open. I freeze, all thought lost, and focus on staying convincingly limp; my heart is pounding, ice flooding my veins.

A cold, hard boot prods my back, “Are you awake? I risked a lot coming here, so you better be.” The voice is low and nervous, furtive.

_ What?  _ I risk a peek up, and then sit up all at once, head spinning. The unsympathetic guard from earlier, was anxiously shifting from foot to foot. He reaches down and helps me up, and then shoves me against the wall, my head thuds against rough stone and pain lances through my jaw. It takes me a little to realise that the guard has begin talking again, agitated sounds spilling from his mouth; when I don’t respond he shakes me roughly. 

“What?” My voice sounds distant, confused. I try to pull myself to the present, focus on his mouth, his voice.

“They killed Olwen! They don’t know I know. I couldn’t find the Divine. Something is happening in the lower-” his words trip over each other in their race to escape his lips.

And then we are running, a strange mutual understanding running instinctively between us. The corredores are strangely empty, long and built from echoing grey stone, I stumble through them with my head ringing and trying to keep pace with the guard. 

“They are in session,” he explains, as we turn a corner. “But the Divine was summoned-”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t follow. I heard them mention the lower levels, this way.”

Down some steps and down some more, running until the guards hoarse cry has me looking up, up to see the bodies of a dozen more men in the same uniform. As he runs to the nearest prone form I am pushing my shaking legs forward, forward; no time to think, I slam into the door and shove it open. 

Red light, a giant shadow, the Divine is looking at me with a startled, fearful gaze that turns hopeful. The creature turns on me and for a moment I can’t move, I can’t think, because nothing in any game has prepared me for this. 

Red, pulsing, sick, the red shards of… wrongness are eating its form; darkness bloating its flesh, ropes of skin and sinew trying to hold together something that was barely recognizable as having once been human. It turned its gaze on me, the dark parody of what had once been a noble face twisted in a permanent sneer. 

“Stop!” I scream, my own volume startling me. 

It’s reply was dark, insidious, monstrous, “ **Ah, the one who sought to foil my plan. You are too late-** ”

The Divine lashes out with startling speed, my head is spinning, the orb is spinning and rolling towards me, this is it, I made it. 

For a horrible moment my thoughts blur and falter as though that darkness seeks to pry a way inside, my vision is going grey; I lash out blindly, falling to the ground, reaching for the sparking green.  _ I can’t let go.  _

And suddenly my hand is burning, searing with pain as though I have reached out to touch a red-hot coal. My grip reflexively slackens, jerking, instinctively trying to drop the object that felt like it would leave nothing of my hand but smoking skeletal fingers.  _ No!  _ But I can’t drop it, it is glued to my hand, and before it can disconnect I bring up my other hand, holding tight, refusing to release it. Corypheus  _ will not  _ have it. And suddenly everything is burning, my eyes and skin are burning, and I have never known pain like this. The shockwave punches through me, and I am torn to pieces and reformed and torn to pieces again. There is blinding light and I am screaming, I can’t stop screaming because nothing like this should exist. 

Then it stops, the light fades, and I collapse to the ground. Soft hands pull at me, but I can’t move because I am shaking… shaking… sobbing into the strange darkness beneath me. When I open my eyes I can see the green light of the fade. 

My hands clutch at nothing, and I stare at them listlessly, because somehow, impossibly, I had failed. The orb is gone. And everything in me aches, as though I am barely held together, as though I will fly into a million pieces with a thought and the mere act of existing hurts me. I am shaking against the ground and crying out, “ _ Halani, ma halani!” _

The soft hands are on my cheeks, urging my gaze upwards, and I recognise that wise and smiling face. “Divine Justinia,” I whisper, “I’m sorry. I failed.”

I know she can’t understand, but I feel the need to apologize nonetheless. So much suffering, all because I didn’t try hard enough. Because I had missed my chance.

That suffering was slowly becoming real to me now. Somewhere in that pain I had left any doubt of reality behind. 

“You must get up,” she says kindly, “we must leave this place.”

Every movement is agony, but I drag myself up to my knees. The world is spinning, blurring, breaking to pieces. When I open my eyes, I have shifted forwards somehow, as though my body couldn’t remember where it was supposed to be. “Go, run.” I whisper hoarsely, “There.” I point, I can see the stairs, the rift, our way out. 

She does, perhaps understanding the intent in my eyes. I close my eyes and breathe, holding myself together, and then fix my eyes on the rift. It flickers and I break, I close my eyes and feel my reality blurr. I scream in a moment of utter darkness, and then open my eyes to find myself beneath the rift. Something has… happened to me. I struggle to understand. Who am I. What am I. I see the divine, and lift her to me with a thought, she glides forwards and alights beside me. 

“Who are you,” she whispers. 

I just shrug, feel even that movement tearing at my Self. “I just want to help.” I whisper, “I don’t want anyone to suffer.”

She smiles, and the sudden kindness in that face sends tears trickling down my cheeks. We step through the rift together, and I am falling onto sharp stones, suddenly hollow, suddenly so empty that it becomes another pain. A tearing, a pushing, everything ripping at my existence. I hear them calling out, “the Divine!” and I smile, glad to hear the joy in those voices. 

I breathe out as I feel myself fading.  _ I’m sorry Solas,  _ I whisper in my mind,  _ I tried to save it.  _

And then the world slips away. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really new to fanfic so all thoughts and comments appreciated. This is a lighter project to just have some fun with to help me along with my other WIP Banal Nadas. The writing here will be a little looser but will hopefully still create a somewhat interesting story to read XD.


	5. Quickly, before more come through!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Closing a rift and facing Solas.

When awareness trickled back, I have just enough consciousness to feel belatedly surprised to be alive. Soft blankets wrap around me tightly, and I whimper as the sensation surrounds me, rubbing raw against a mind that had broken into a million pieces. 

Green light flares through my eyelids, and I hear a gasp of fright and cries of alarm. The Divine speaks to them, her voice calm, “Peace daughters.”

I am being carried with careful arms, head tucked against a shoulder, and this knowledge tears at me. I struggle with my eyelids… a foreign feeling after…

_ Breaking into pieces, I am there with a thought… why is this familiar? _

I moan again, though this time it is almost a sound of frustration. It is like I am outside of myself, looking in, trying to pry my eyelids apart in a world wrapped with darkness. 

The Divine speaks again. “Young man, do you know what has happened to her? They say you have studied the fade in some depth.”

A deeper, melodic voice answers her from just above me. “Without further study, I cannot say.”

I know that voice. I know it with a familiarity that aches inside my chest like a wound. I want nothing more to stare up and see the face I know is there. I am suddenly hyper-aware of exactly _whose_ chest I am tucked firmly against. 

Cassandra is shouting orders, and I hear Leliana speaking quietly too. Surprisingly, some of my panic fades. I know these people, trust them. Corypheus is gone. I am alive, and  _ so is the Divine.  _

We are moving quickly, and that same green light is still flaring, tainting my thoughts emerald. Is it the Mark? I flex my hand, feeling nothing out of the ordinary; it’s everything else that is broken, the world that is trembling and  _ wrong  _ around me. 

“Will she be able to close the rifts?” Cassandra’s voice is close now. “Even with the Divine alive, the breach may still swallow the world if we do not act.”

“We will find out soon enough,” Solas replies. “But the magic in her skin resonates with it in a way that my own cannot.  I can only theorize that the two may be connected in some way.” His voice is slightly cool, reserved. 

Cassandra sighs, and her voice softens. “I apologize if my earlier actions were harsh. We…,” she hesitated and breathed an unsteady inhalation. “We all lost much at the conclave. Justinia’s life was a miracle, and we owe our only hope to you. Thank you, for offering help when you did.” Her voice is rough and genuine. “It was a noble act, more so given the risks you faced in doing so.”

Only pressed so close am I able to detect the slight relaxation in his shoulders. So he was afraid? I try to imagine what it would be like, to have your life and plans at the mercy of the chantry. He must feel truly helpless. 

There is no hint of that uncertainty in his reply. “The breach threatens the entire world. If I wish to survive, it is only natural I should lend my assistance to the only nearby force with the strength to approach it.”

“Nonetheless, I…”

Green flashes and a burning sensation rips through my bones. I hear the screams from a distance before recognizing that they are my own. 

“Fenedhis!” Solas curses, and I feel a pressure on my temple. A strange coldness radiates from it, vacillating, teasing the pain away from my bones and wrapping it away. 

“The pulses… they’re coming faster now.” Cassandra comments. I nearly laugh at how familiar that line is. 

I am shaking, my breath coming in gasps. A familiar sound is writhing in the air…

“Bridge,” I manage to gasp. 

I don’t even want to think about how much it will hurt if I am dropped from a height onto ice and rocks, it looked painful enough in the game. 

“Hmmm?” Solas’ hand pauses, withdraws.

How is it that just a murmur from Solas, directed towards me, sets my heart racing. I have to wrench my thoughts back on track.

“The bridge,” I whisper. “Don’t cross it, not yet.”

Cassandra must have been listening because we stop moving suddenly. 

Delayed realization strikes me like a whip… a blast of green light… men standing by the gate tossed like dolls. 

“Get the men away from the bridge!” My voice struggles to rise above a whisper, I lean over myself and tear at my eyes,  _ open, open…  _ “The breach-”

I am relieved when I hear Cassandra running, not questioning. 

“Back from the bridge, NOW,” she shouts, voice ringing with authority.

Not moments later you hear the whoosh of the incoming fade-comet-thing, and the ground shakes with the impact and cracking of heavy stone. I hear a distant yelp, some shouts, and breath a sigh of relief. 

I am even more relieved when nobody questions me, and movement resumes. My eyes are fastened shut, aside from the strange light, and occasional branches of shadow. It is a familiarly horrid sensation, of being trapped in darkness… This happened regularly in my nightmares; my eyes wouldn’t open, and I was trapped… blind…

 

I must have lost consciousness because I am suddenly uncomfortable and sharp cold rock pricks my cheek rudely.  _ Go Away,  _ my mind screams; however, it rudely ignores me, and that fact jars against me like a blow. 

A horrible shriek goes up behind me, a howling horrible scream like nails tearing through a chalkboard, like a monster…

Arms are around me again, uncomfortable, and the green is too bright…  _ too bright…  _ and my eyes are open and that emerald green is swirling in front of me like a window attuned to my gaze, drawing it in…

I try to look away, but a firm hand seizes my jaw and holds my head in place. 

“Quickly,”  **he** says. “Before more come through!”

I know what he wants, but I don’t know how. I lift a sluggish arm and peer at my palm. Nothing. No familiar green tear. I want to laugh and cry at the same time. 

“I can’t,” I whisper, fighting the green, fighting the hand. “I’m not the Herald. I don’t have the mark.”

A sound of annoyance, “Whatever the Dalish believe, it has no import here,” his voice is like stone. “Try.”

The green is swirling and familiar… you grow lighter as you watch…  _ you could go home. _

The hands tighten on my jaw, binding, cold as ice. “No,” he says clearly, though what he denied exactly I did not know. “Focus.”

_ Green… even with those fingers, it was inside me, flowing in my veins. My eyes were burning and I could not look away.  _

_ “ _ **Close it,” Solas**  commands. And I did. I reached out and turned the key in the lock. 

The sudden snap of silence was deafening, my mind reeled back within itself, sore and burning. The sting of nausea burned in my throat. 

“Down,” I mutter thickly, wriggling when the grip does not immediately comply. There are some things I am under no circumstances prepared to do, and vomiting on Fen’Harel was one of them. 

I wrench myself free and retch on the ground. For the first time in hours, the cold solidity of the rock and snow was a relief. I spit burning bile from my mouth, and shove some clean snow into my mouth, melting and spitting in desperation to remove the residue. When the acrid and bitter foulness is gone, I roll over and flop to the ground, pressing my head into the cold. 

“Is she alright?” A husky, laughing voice inquires after my health. Varric!

Hands at my shoulders, and I look up into a familiar face. My heart shudders, and my breath chokes in something like a sob. I look away from blue-grey eyes that peer straight into my soul. 

“What did you do?” The question that leaves my mouth is genuine, and I bite back a laugh as I realize the in-game script was identical. 

I look up in time to see his sharp gaze lighten, his lips quirk up into a wry smile that would seem genuine if my gut didn’t squirm at the familiar sight, screaming  _ false.  _

“ _ I  _ did nothing,” he begins, “the credit is-”

“No!” I overrule him. “I don’t have the anchor. I shouldn’t be able to.”

His brows gather in what  _ seems  _ to be confusion. I stare at my left palm, running my hand over it. There  _ is  _ a mark there, now that I look closely… a strange flaring shape traced into my skin… running down my wrist, red angry burns welting around it. It reminded me of Justice when Anders lost control. The thought makes me shiver. I am only myself, nothing is possessing me, I wouldn’t be conscious otherwise. 

For a single moment, Solas’ gaze becomes dangerously sharp. He takes my wrist in a smooth motion that leaves my mouth dry with fear. “You were expecting a mark on this hand? An ‘anchor’.”

I gape, scrambling to gather my thoughts, “the magister… he said he needed it. He was trying to do some kind of ritual.”

“Ah,” the gaze softens, and I feel strangely guilty. 

I didn’t technically lie, and I had to remember not to. I didn’t know if he could actually  _ sense  _ falsehoods, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way.

He continues as though my guilt isn’t plainly written across my face (which I am relatively sure it is), “whatever magic opened the breach in the sky  _ also  _ placed that mark upon your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the breaches wake.” He pauses, that strange smile returning, “and it seems I was-”

“A magister?” Cassandra demands over the top of him. “Are you saying a  _ Magister  _ caused this?  _ Tevinter would dare? _ ”

She seizes the front of what is now a very battered brown dress and drags me to my feet. She is pale with anger, and I feel her hands shaking. “The Conclave is destroyed.  _ Everyone  _ who attended, save you and the Divine, is dead.  _ Tell me what you remember. _ ”

The pain, clear as day in her eyes, strikes a blow in me. I shake my head, remembering, and suddenly my eyes are wet with tears as I remember Regalyan. “ _ I’m sorry, _ ” I whisper. 

“Easy, seeker.” the jovial voice from earlier interrupts, “no matter what she remembers, you need to go easy on her. We need her to close that hole in the sky remember?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All comments appreciated!! Arrghghg I hope you enjoy this! It is very interesting to write! Let's see what comes next (i'm finding out too!).


	6. Fractured Self

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why don't I have the mark? How do I cope with speaking to Solas?

Cassandra releases me and I stagger to the side where a firm and a very  _ hairy  _ grip steadies me.

“Easy now,” Varric says when I jump. He pats my arm, his easygoing smile and concern somehow instantly reassuring. 

Something about that firm and gentle touch, familiar and human in the madness, breaks me. I cling to his hand and lose a struggle against tears, gasping with surprise as he pulls me down into a tight hug. I sob against his shoulder, unable to stop myself, all the pain and anger of the past few days writhing in my chest and bursting out. 

I can practically feel his glare over my shoulder, “See? She’s been through a lot of shit these past few days, and now you’re taking her to fight demons on a mountain. Maybe you can save the interrogations for  _ after  _ we get through this alive.”

I try to pull myself together, but this was just  _ too much.  _ Varric was right, but he didn’t know the half of it… After  everything that had happened, my mind was tired and limping to keep up. There had been  _ so much pain…   _ but it was gone now, and I clung to that fact. 

Could I have saved all those people somehow? If I had been less of an idiot? If I had…

A hand falls on my shoulder, and I am startled to feel Cassandra’s hand on my shoulder.

“I am sorry,” she says with a long sigh. “You may be a mage, but you are no warrior. I am too brash, sometimes; but I do not believe you had anything to do with this, not truly.”

The weight of Cassandra’s anger lifted, I am able to think a little clearer. I pull back from Varric, embarrassed, wiping at my face. 

With a sudden motion that could not have surprised me more, Cassandra jerks forward and embraces me as well, the gesture heartfelt, if brief and awkward. She pulls back and looks away, clearly embarrassed. 

“I just wanted… I mean to say… I am poor at condolences, and too hasty to act. Do not think I bear you ill will.”

I swallow, and suddenly have to fight the urge not to cry again. She is familiar… somehow. More a friend and less a stranger. Her hostility had burned me like a brand, made everything feel impossible. 

She pats me on the shoulder awkwardly, then coughs and steps away. “My name is Seeker Cassandra. I returned from Kirkwall only fast enough to witness the blast, and it was my men who found you when you fell from the rift.”

I try to nod along, honestly unsure if I should admit to knowing this already. Lies were not my forte. “I-”

Varric interrupts me, “And I, her devilishly handsome companion, am Varric Tethras! Rogue, storyteller, and generally unwelcome tag-along.” He grins in a way that has me believing he has had that introduction planned for a while now. 

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions,” I can’t help myself, I actually jump when I hear his voice speaking from behind me. I spin around, expecting to see that strange smile on his face that always appears at the start of the game. Instead his face is quite serious, more familiar.

I am sure that I flinch, or react to that face,  _ goddammit that face,  _ in some way because his brows pull together in confusion. 

It was him, flesh and blood,  _ standing in front of me.  _ I had admired that face before, but something rendered out of imagination and software was nothing compared to this. How did people not see that he was  _ more _ , the heavy intelligence in those eyes, the ancient and foreign angles to his cheeks and ears. And he was  _ breathtaking,  _ I couldn’t breathe, because I knew him, had cried for him, had loved him, for such a very very long time. 

I wanted to step forward and tell him that. That I would never keep secrets from him. That he didn’t have to be alone. I wanted to scream. I wanted to touch his cheek and see the living breathing soul of him dancing in those eyes. I wanted to tell him that every movement, every gesture he made, was a gift that broke my heart. 

He smiles, the expression quizzical, halfway amused. “I am pleased to see you still live.”

Every familiar word from that mouth does  _ something  _ to my heart, I can feel it stuttering in my chest; confused and… overwhelmed.

Varric pats my arm, but I can’t look away from Solas, even though i’m sure I must be staring more than is socially appropriate. “He means, ‘I kept your body from killing itself while you slept’.

I blink, slightly derailed by the change in dialogue. “My body from… killing itself?”

Solas simply raises an eyebrow, “Whatever magic created the breach seems to have left its mark on you, perhaps in the manner it thrust you into the fade. Whatever the reason, I theorised you may also be key to closing the rifts that have opened in the breaches wake.”

Left its mark on me?  _ What did it do to me.  _

I look down at my hand, at the strange and broken pattern of light spreading out from the burn mark on my palm. I go to wrench back my sleeve, but Solas’ hand comes down firmly, preventing me. 

“Don’t. Looking will not help matters.” He presses my arm back down to my side. His gaze is serious. “I am sorry, but for now, your focus  _ must  _ remain on our attempt to seal the breach.”

I am struggling for air, struggling to breathe, lightheaded. Having  _ Solas  _ standing in front of me was  _ not  _ helping. 

His hand was still on my arm, where a strange soothing feeling seemed to radiate towards me. I focus on it, and suddenly feel as if I am floating outside myself, listening from a distance as he continues speaking to Cassandra. 

“You should know, this magic involved is unlike any i’ve seen. Your prisoner _is_ a mage, but I find it difficult to imagine _any_ mage having such power.” He is so sure and confident, it is hard to even consider doubting his words. 

Cassandra simply sighs, accepting his knowledge at face value. “Understood. We must get to the forward camp, and quickly.”

A soft cough, and I manage to move my head to look down at the strangely concerned dwarf standing next to me. He peers up at me, and I must look as vacant as I feel because he promptly turns to Solas, asking “Is she going to be alright Chuckles? I can’t imagine what this is like for her...”

I feel fingers on the side of my head, a small tendrel of warmth moving through me. 

Solas speaks softly to me, “ _ Ne vir aravel’assa?” Can you go on? _

There is comfort to be had in those familiar words, though why they are familiar… I struggle to remember. I nod shakily to him, and I am given a single grateful bow of the head in return before he turns to Varric.

“She is simply in shock, Master Tethras. And no warrior. Circumstances such as these would be trying for anyone.” There is no judgement, no condescension in his voice. If I hadn’t been floating somewhere behind myself, wrapped in cotton wool, I probably would have cried again.

It is a short march down the hill, and an equally short battle against the waiting demons. They vanish with eery screams that tug at me and I try to shut them out. 

We cross out onto the frozen river where I promptly fall flat on my face. How the others remain upright is beyond me. At this point Cassandra simply hoists me up and carries me across the ice. The rest is a blur, a slog up a steep slope, more battle and screaming; this time I notice the thrumming of the barrier that goes up around me when the fighting starts, and I am grateful. 

I am slowly returning to myself when we reach the second rift, and I am almost disappointed when the flow of spirits and demons it launches at us are swiftly dispatched. I still have  _ no idea  _ how I closed the last one, and the fact that everyone is counting on me to pull this off does  _ not  _ help. I stare at it, try that yanking motion I always saw my Lavellan make in game, but that doesn’t appear to be how this actually works. It makes sense that the game wouldn’t be entirely accurate to… whatever this was, but it sure wasn’t helping me figure out what the hell I was supposed to do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a short chapter! I'm posting it to encourage myself to keep plowing ahead! I've been sick but hopefully I will continue to recover and write a lot more in both this and my other WIP Banal Nadas!  
> Thankyou so much for reading!  
> And as always, I love to receive any comments (honestly comments make my day!).


	7. Hearts Were Not Made for This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas smiles at me. I close the breach. The world is saved! (I wish)

“You  **must** seal it, quickly!” I hear Solas shouting my way.

“ _ Frickin!  _ I don’t know how!” My panic is clear in my shaky voice, “What do I do?”

The amorphous, twisting window in front of me is writhing, twisting, growing. I thrust my arm towards it, my right arm this time, as it feels more natural. “Close dammit!”

A noise of frustration near you, and then it feels like Solas has grabbed my arm again but… not. I see his hand on my shoulder, and a very odd sensation; as though he is attempting to direct my arm away from my body, but at the same time… not. His hand is still loose on my shoulder. Must be some fade-magic thing that I have no understanding of. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, certain that whatever this is will thoroughly mess with my head otherwise; I can feel… myself, holding tight and close, and Solas tugging impatiently on… me?

“ **Reach out,”** he says, and I let him yank me loose. Vertigo, and then disorientation, and then suddenly he is thrusting me out towards the tear in reality, “ **close it.** ” 

It seems obvious now, and I can see the seething mass of  _ somethings  _ swarming on the other side. I slam the window shut in their faces, feeling a little rude but not having many options.

I open my eyes to see the rift gone, and Solas smiling at me. Fuck.

No heart was ever meant to withstand such a sight. 

“Well done,” he says, “It seems you  _ are  _ the key to our salvation.”

If words could truly melt you, I would have been reduced to a tiny, shivering, puddle. As things are, I just gape at him like an idiot. Before I can respond, Cassandra shouts out, calling for the gates to be opened, and the moment passes. 

Moving forwards and towards Chancellor Roderick, Varric sidles up beside me. 

“You with us now? Had me worried back there. I know what times like these can do to a person,” his voice is gruff, but warm. His eyes pierce into you, concern mixing with something sharper. 

For some reason, the concept of having to actually  _ socialise  _ with people while in Thedas instead of just… choose options… is really confusing to my brain. I am constantly pausing and waiting for some kind of dialogue selection. 

When I don’t immediately respond, he pats me on the arm in a comforting gesture, and nearly moves on before I stop him.

“I… thank you!” I blurt out, “I’m sorry! Yes. I mean, you were right, earlier.” I blush as I realise I am talking nonsense, and look at the ground. “This is all… I’m not used to this kind of thing.”

He laughs long and loud at that, and ahead of us I see Solas turn in curiosity. 

“I don’t think anyone  _ is  _ used to this kind of thing. Don’t worry,” Varric pats the large and familiar crossbow that he has strapped to his back. “Bianca and I are looking out for you. She’s great company in times like these.”

I can’t help but smile at that. “I’m not sure than you can shoot Chancellor Roderick, however.”

“Ha!” 

I shut up when I realise that we are quickly approaching said man. Nearby, someone is preaching the chant of light, just as I remember it from the game. 

Roderick doesn’t appear any less sour with the Divine still surviving, if anything, he appears even more agitated than I remember. 

“You! Seeker, listen to reason! I refuse to stand idly by while the life of Her Holiness is at risk! We must retreat at once, escort her to safety!” His face contorts into a sneer as he looks towards me, “And that, _thing,_ that abomination - for all we know _she_ _caused_ the explosion in the first place!”

I know that it’s around here that the Herald is supposed to speak up, and in spite of my shyness, the familiar rudeness of Roderick inspires me to follow suit. 

“Isn’t the breach the more pressing issue?” I say, deliberately following the game script because I am honestly too nervous to get creative. 

Cassandra looks at me, startled, almost as surprised as I am at my speaking up. 

Roderick considers me like I am a piece of slime that started talking, and that really gets my hackles up. I have never been able to stand it when people justify treating others like dirt. 

Cassandra interrupts him before he can start whatever depreciating tyrade he was clearly about to get started on, “The Divine herself has spoken on this, this woman saved her from the evil inside the temple. And we are here at her own behest, the course is clear.”

The Chancellor looks deflated, “Very well. I suppose we do what must be done, if the Divine herself has spoken on the matter.” He ignores me utterly, clearly suspicious, despite everything. 

“We must get to the temple, it’s the quickest route!” Cassandra insists, “And time is of the essence; the breach is ripping her apart, and she is the only one with a hope of closing it. Leliana is protecting the Divine in our absence.”

I nod along, supposing it all makes sense and explains Leliana’s whereabouts. No path through the mountains option then, and I am glad because I had always hated making my way through the mines and the Rage demons. 

We’re off again then, trudging up through the snow and with soldiers gathering behind us at the Chancellors summons. 

“I…” I feel more than a little awkward with no idea how to get Cassandra’s attention. “Seeker?”

She looks at me, curious.

“I was just wondering, did you send anyone ahead? Maybe we could find a way to help out the forward scouts on the way?” I honestly have no idea how to phrase the question in a way that sounds sane, but I  _ know  _ that there’s probably a group of scouts trapped not far from the main path, and I can’t just ignore that. 

“We did have a squad go missing on the mountain path through the mines, but we can’t take that route, it’s too risky.” The regret in her eyes is obvious.

“But we could check the path near the temple, just in case they almost made it,” you suggest, really hoping that sentence makes some sort of sense. 

Cassandra just nods, “Of course. However, that is your decision. Searching will take time, time in which the breach may… cause you further pain. I would not ask it of you.”

I nod firmly. “We search.” 

She inclines her head, and I see a brief gleam of relief in her eyes. You do not doubt that the lives weigh on her. “Thank-you. Hopefully your courage is not in vain.”

We find them, of course, and I manage to shove the fade-window closed without assistance this time. I figure out that I can reach out towards it with the  _ something strange  _ that I associate with my newfound magic, and then shove it shut, ignoring that the experience left my theoretical magical fingers numb. 

Solas smiles and nods to me when I manage it, “You are becoming quite proficient at this.”

I laugh at the fact that he took longer to say that than he did in game, probably because my Lavellan was much  _ more  _ proficient than I was. This gets me a strange look, probably as he wonders what I am chuckling to myself about.

When the scouts thank us profusely, Cassandra directs their thanks to me, which leaves me feeling flabbergasted but also gives me warmth. Some lives saved. Some small piece against the mountain of failure that was the conclave.

And then we are moving  _ again  _ and I am feeling tired and achy and sore all over by this point. I want to press pause, have a bath, have some  _ food  _ because I am starving. But I can’t. And my legs hurt from climbing a  _ fricken mountain.  _ Even my new elf legs aren’t invulnerable to that apparently.

And through it all I  _ ache,  _ a feeling that steadily grows worse; like growing pain all through my body and skin, but so much worse,  _ so much worse.  _ Ugh. I do my best to ignore it, and not worry that it means my body is about to try to kill itself again. 

By the time we hit cullen, I am in a haze of pain and am half slouched on Varric who I have decided is my best friend right now, because he has been kind and concerned and doesn’t fill me with anxiety (or turn me to complete and utter mush). I ignore Cullen and just focus on keeping moving and not dissolving into a gazillion atoms of nothing and  _ not  _ looking at all the seared bodies remaining on the ground.

Seared bodies. On the ground.

Of course I look, because I’m stupid, and then i’m vomiting on the ground again… and this was getting so much worse  _ so fast.  _ We hadn’t even fought the Pride demon yet. 

And then Solas is carrying me again, and I am squishing shut another damn green fade window with numb magic hands, and I am trying  _ really damn hard not look at the ocean of eyes on the other side.  _

Solas has his hand pressed to my temple and he is doing something with his magic that helps a lot, a cooling feeling spreads over me and my skin is just skin again and not… ants running over me. I feel less feverish. 

“Thanks,” I whisper to him, still dazed. “Sorry for being rude back at the tavern. And vanishing after you helped me.”

“Thank me if you survive closing the breach,” he says, though not unkindly. 

“I will.”

I am vaguely conscious for a bit more, the temple, the planning, I blearily state that I will do my best to close it (it’s not like there are any alternatives). I hear Cory’s creepy as voice, and my own yelling ‘Stop!’, at least that made me look decidedly innocent. 

I feel something  _ really really bad  _ and a really yucky whispery singing that makes me moan and want to throw up  _ again.  _ When Varric mentions red lyrium, I am dead afraid. I am trying not to listen, but you can’t not listen. And I am thinking how I need to get away, away from the stuff, and remembering how I don’t think anything scares me more than the blight. Yuck!

I hear Solas talking nearby about opening and resealing in an apologetic voice, and I wrench the damn thing open. The chuckling of that damn pride demon is instantaneous and  _ even more annoying than I remembered.  _ I open my eyes, flex my magic fingers, and stuff the damn thing back where it came from. Then I grab the two broken bits of windowsill, stick them back together, test it works, and slam it shut in the sulking creatures face. 

A deranged part of me thinks how i’m glad I did technicraft in school, while another part of me comments on how it is very unlikely woodwork had any bearing on manipulating fade doors.

Then I pass out again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one funky story, and I am definitely having fun with it!  
> This is my 'relax and enjoy thedas' project, so if you want to see my more 'serious' project, please check out my other WIP Banal Nadas. Note, I am still dedicated to finishing and crafting this story, the other is just a bit more serious and dedicated to language craft.  
> As always, comments make my day!


	8. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So many many apologies for the awful wait, life exploded on me and I have been sticking everything back together.   
> Hopefully this is the first of many many new updates.  
> Thankyou everyone who still reads and ejoys :) <3

I become aware, blinking into a strangely familiar sight. Pixelated tiles and a dreary green sky… dark towers on the horizon. Strange spikes twist into oddly distorted and elongated shapes, and they are  _ very  _ familiar.

I frown, confused, reaching for my mouse. Yes, I am at the computer, leaning back in my dark office. Had I fallen asleep? I had been lost in such… vivid dreams.

But they hadn’t been dreams, had they? I had been there! Hadn’t I?

I follow the familiar twisted path through the fade of Dragon Age: Origins, trying to  understand what was happening. Had closing the breach sent me back? Had hallucinated somehow? I zap a few unfriendly wisps, and approach a large and ugly napping bear.  _ Ah,  _ the Harrowing, easy and familiar.

The creature blinks at me from the screen, eyes narrowed. “What manner of trickery is this,” it growls, teeth bared. The voice is gruffer, darker than I remember. “Why have you trapped me.”

This was unexpected. My finger darts to my offensive spells in response to the hostility,  and I prepare for the creature to flash red. Not that I need to worry, I have god mode switched on. I'm hint hunting, not doing a serious playthrough after all.

The dialogue wheel pops up and I examine my options. ‘ _ Die demon!’  _ ugh, no. ‘ _ Trapped you?’ - ‘Can you help me escape this place?’  _ I choose the second option, as I truly do not know what it is referring to; the harrowing?

The bear sits back on its haunches, “Oh? My mistake, Dreamer.” It gazes about itself and laughs a strange laugh, as though it had found itself somewhere truly baffling.

_ You and me both, bear. _

Oh well. At least this isn't the nasty circle fade section. But if this was the harrowing then where was Mouse?

“That  _ is  _ how the Harrowing works, you heard it yourself. The demon that hunts you dies, or you do. It is the only way out.” The bear chuckles darkly, “But you are not afraid, of course you aren’t. Nothing can touch you. The world bends to your will.”

I sigh, only half listening to what is becoming very familiar demon talk. “Can you teach the mouse to become a bear?”

“Why the mouse? I can teach you. I have the knowledge of the Fade, of ancient years. There is so little you understand. Open your mind to me. Through us both, we will learn, we will change this world.” The bear sits back on its haunches, and its eyes are very dark.

Excitement and confusion rush through me, as I hear unfamiliar words and offers of knowledge. I had never heard this option before. Was there unfamiliar lore here? Wouldn’t I do anything to learn more of how thedas worked?

My heart is beating fast, a wild elation is thrilling through me. It is so safe when nothing is real. A game. A dream. The emotions are strange, strong and vivid; unfamiliar. But they are mine, aren’t they?

I open my mouth, but before I can reply to Sloth, a hand descends on my shoulder and everything changes. Safety peels away, my desk is gone, the monitor is gone… I am kneeling on cracked rock and grass. My hand is warm… outstretched… strange…

The Pride Demon laughs, the ground trembling. I am frozen. My hand trembles, nearly touching scarlet flesh that crawls with an aura of corruption. I want to scream, but I can’t move my jaw, can’t breathe.

“ **Begone mage,”** the voice rolls through my gut, tears at my skin. If I am screaming, I make no noise; I scream silence and tears to the void. My hand does not move. 

“ _ Lasa, ma’revas _ ,” the stern voice behind me is familiar, and with a crack of white lightning and a flare of power the paralysis releases me. 

I fall, shaking to ground that is too real. Too real. This was a dream, wasn’t it?

The monitor, it is there, I can see it perched on the ground next to the humming box of my PC. I grab at it, latching on to the familiar, and pull the heavy plastic rectangle to my chest. I am gasping, as panic surges through me.

A dream. This has to be a dream. Had I been playing dragon age too long? Sometimes lack of sleep made my dreams harsh and raw… But then why was I awake? 

And I had been  _ there,  _ I still feel the ice on my skin, still hear the red whispers if I remember hard enough.  _ Stop it. _

Another flash and snap of power, and that familiar voice is snapping everything away again. 

“The rift affects the fade, just as it does Haven. You  _ must _ be more careful,” the voice is directed at me now. 

I scramble to my feet and back away from the creature. There is darkness beneath me, and as I move away the demon seems only to loom closer, larger. It’s horns peel back in solid, sharp rivets over skin that is warped and bulging; a vicious and shark like face sneers down at me. The creature laughs, and it is like I feel it inside my chest.  _ My  _ pride, my own godlike confidence from moments ago stirring through my paniclike a caress.

The demon speaks to me, and I listen. 

“ **You cannot hide from me** ,” it laughter is thunder crashing in the abyss. “ **You know this world, you own it. I grow fat on your pride, and I** **_will have your power_ ** _. _ ”

“Solas,” the word is torn from me in a strangled whimper as the demon seems to swell.

It could crush me with a finger, it could eat my soul and make me a monster.

_ But I know  _ everything  _ about this world, nothing could stop me if I let it in, nothing would defy me, not even Solas. _

I shriek in defiance. It helped that my only current emotion was pure damn terror. How ridiculous, my first time in the fade and I encounter a  _ pride  _ demon of all things. How ironic. 

The pride demon actually recoils in something like disgust, probably stumbling upon an ocean of self loathing. That thought even makes me laugh out loud, despite my terror.

But after a moment's pause the demon shakes with laughter, sending me backing up further. Its eyes gleam. “ **How little you know of pride** ,” it hums with what almost sounds like joy. “ **And how** **_little_ ** **resistance you offer.”**

My chest hurts. It burns, and grows, and the heat of that stirring pride is fire in my veins. When I open my eyes I see a world of small people that exist to bend to my will, to give me pleasure. I shiver with the knowledge that I could walk over it all, if only I would surrender to the knowledge that this was what I truly wanted.

Perhaps I am screaming. I am distantly aware of pain, of refusal.

_ No, this isn’t what I want.  _

The warmth bleeding through me is nauseating. I want to rip it out from under my skin. 

_ This isn’t what I want. _

I sob within my thoughts, not knowing what else to do. I cannot fight. I cannot see.

_ This isn’t what I want. _

Something in my words lets me open my eyes. I open them wider, wider to that truth. 

_ I want to be small and kind. Seen and accepted. I want to do what is right. I want to exist, not lead. I want to be wise, but not superior.. _

A familiar, lean figure is standing before me, staff clasped firmly before him and frowning down at me. His eyes, however, are kind. That kindness, as it always has, punches right to the heart of me.

“Indeed.” He agrees, had I been speaking aloud? 

I can’t help it, the sight of him makes me feel safer, cooler, like soft shade under a waterfall, longing.

As though he had been waiting for something, Solas raises his staff and strikes the ground with a blow that resonates through the ground, within me, like a gust of cool wind. 

I am suddenly exhausted, drooping, drained… but at the same time, cool relief rushes through me in a painful tide.

I drop to my knees. There are tears in my eyes, and my heart is beating wildly. We are alone.

When I open my eyes, I hear the steady rush of water crashing down, I feel damp hair pressed to my neck. Cold stone beneath my arms, lights dancing in the air. There is a waterfall, dark stone; familiar and yet foreign.

I am still clutching my monitor. My monitor, my desk, my room and my nook… all gone. Nowhere to hide. What am I wearing? I look down and see my blue elephant pajamas.

“Well done,” I look up to see Solas sitting on the stone beside me, dry and serene, gaze fixed on me. His eyes are too sharp, they cut through me, curious and calculating; but concerned too. 

I shiver, and my anxiety rises in a sour river. I drop the monitor, which promptly vanishes, and hug my legs.

“It was all real, wasn’t it,” I ask, my voice broken and pitiful. 


	9. Tumbleweed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking in Haven

_ “ _ That's a matter of debate,” he reaches for my hand, and as I let him help me to my feet I find myself looking away, scared to meet his eyes. I know his next words by instinct, the phrasing familiar as breathing. “Probably best discussed after you…  **wake up** .”

The words sound loud, different, warped and twisting. Feeling like I am floundering, drowning in molasses, I try to open my eyes. My arms are heavy like lead, and my head is throbbing. I hear myself moan. 

“Hush,” a gentle coolness presses against my forehead. 

Am I awake? I don't feel awake. Nausea and disorientation rolls through me in harsh, throbbing, pulses. Everything is swimming behind a cloud of fog, and my thoughts crawl in slow circles.

“Messir Solas came by a few hours ago. Said you might be wakin’ soon. I told him, Apothecary Adan said it'd be at  _ least _ another few days, but he…” the way the voice chattered, I got the feeling they had been talking a while, not really expecting me to be listening,  “... he paid that no mind at all! Some of the other servants swear that one’s got more knowin’ than’s natural, but they also reckon’d the empty shack was haunted last week, and it’was only mice!…”

Pain spasms through me again and I cry out, interrupting the monologue. Firm hands grasp my shoulders and rotate me right before I heave and retch what might have been a light broth, followed by bitter acid. Sourness burns my throat, nearly forcing me to retch again; the effort not to brings tears to my eyes.

“Water,” I try to croak, only to discover cool liquid already pressed to my lips. I sip and spit as directed, too disoriented to feel mortified at my position.

I struggle to open my eyes as I fall back onto what is a very hard and unforgiving mattress. At least the pillow is soft, supporting… I have to fight to stay conscious.

As I peel my eyelids back, breaking a caked layer that had half sealed my eyes shut, I peer out into blurry semi-darkness.

A tall and unnaturally slender figure is leaning over me, short-cropped pale hair framing a small and pinched round face with unnaturally enormous eyes. The girl is smiling to herself as she chatters, and she leans absentmindedly for a cloth before moving to wipe my mouth. When she sees my eyes open she  _ squeaks,  _ loud and excited. 

“Oh Maker! You’ve ‘wakened! Can you hear me?” Her eyes, impossibly, get even wider when I nod. “You’re back in Haven, milady. They say you saved us! The breach stopped growing, just like the mark on your hand!” She steps back, away from me, face anxious, before handing me her cloth. 

With great effort I lever myself upright and run the cool fabric over my skin. The sensation is a relief, and I become even more aware of feeling damp and sticky with sweat. 

“It’s all anyone’s talked about since yesterday!” she continues breathlessly, “I'll need to fetch Apothecary Adan, he said to let him know when you woke. ‘At once’ he said!

Before I can react in any way, she dashes from the room at a flustered run, leaving me disoriented but relieved at having some privacy. The room is dark and familiar, even the sounds are familiar, like coming home. Narrow windows look out onto dark pine fronds and snow covered ground. There is a sharp chill in the air, despite the full fire in the hearth, and I feel myself shivering.

Sitting is an ordeal, a war with leaden muscles, it feels like I am weighted down and waterlogged and as I lift myself the world lurches sideways. Nausea swells and I manage to snag the sick bowl before heaving dry retches, trickles of acid burning my throat; my whole body aching and shivering like a leaf.

When my heaving finally ends, and I have rinsed out my mouth thoroughly, I push the bowl away and struggle to my feet. I ache all over, and when I glance down I can't help but cry out in alarm; I had forgotten….

There is a stranger's body under me, lithe and narrow. Again, I reach for my ears, and feel the long and foreign length of them; the pressure of my fingers against their tips is strangely sensitive and makes me shudder.

It all feels… alien, unnatural and surreal like looking through a game screen.

I realize that I might not even have the same face, and something about the thought has me struggling to breathe. I manage to stand, pushing myself forward and teetering on my stick like frame like a colt finding its legs. What had happened to the strange exhilaration from earlier? The memories are there, dancing out of reach at the edges of my mind. Flashes of sun and leather, bark and musk, straining effort; when I close my eyes I can taste them, familiar like a forgotten dream.

I take one perfect step, the muscles coiling and familiar, panic and strength rolling through me. The memories… I… her? She wants to run, be free of this place, dash for the forest and leave the shems behind.

_ They are dangerous,  _ she whispers,  _ they hate us, hunt us, use us. They are blind. _

I grip my head in my hands, shaking. I try to shut her out, but she is everywhere.

“Who are you,” I demand, rummaging in my mind, trying to tear her out by the roots. “A… a demon?”

I remember my dream and sudden terror sparks through me, was it  _ that. Had it gotten inside me? _

_ Don't be stupid. I would know. _

_ Would I? _

I'm  _ no demon. If anything is.... _

I hear footsteps approaching the door, and  _ terror  _ runs through me. I am leaping, slamming the bolt down, eyeing the window. Can I escape that way?

_ No!  _ I am shrieking at myself, at panic in my head.  _ They already think we killed the Divine. You'll get us killed! _

We fight for control of the door, gasping and panting, falling hard against the wood with a crash. The door handle shakes roughly and voices of alarm cry out on the other side, “Herald?”

At the sound of a familiar voice, Cassandra's, that other piece of me seems to fold down, shrink away, my knowledge overcoming it somehow.

“One moment!” I gasp. Fuck! I was going to look insane. Maybe I  _ was  _ insane. I wrench the bolt clear without thinking, and the door bursts open with a crash of timber. I only just manage to leap clear as, in a cruel twist of fate, three figures collapse in an ungainly heap in the doorway.

“ _ Maker _ !” one of the figures grumbles from beneath a very heap of steel and reddish furs, the tone is so put-out and familiar that it almost makes me want to laugh. Almost.

“If you could remove yourself from my person, Commander, I would be most grateful.” Cassandra's dry voice is halfway amused, halfway mortified.

“I'm so sorry!” I gasp, waving my hands in panic as several of the most powerful people in thedas scramble to their feet in front of me. The horror and disbelief is slowly sinking in, struggling to catch up with me. “I'm... I'm so sorry!”

“It's quite alright, I assure you.” Cassandra bites out, while staring at Cullen with a face that speaks to the contrary. “Healer Adan, you are unharmed?” She lifts the third figure to his feet with all the effort of righting a kitten.

The bright red Adan sputters. “Alchemist! I am an alchemist-" 

Cullen strides forward abruptly and seizes me by the shoulder. My gaze raises up to a  _ very  _ familiar face, but there is no recognition in his eyes, only suspicion. “What were you doing in here,” he demands, “I heard voices… banging....”

“W-waking up,” I stutter stupidly without thinking as he stares down at me. I feel myself turning a bright crimson, and soon he follows suit, dropping my shoulder like it is a red hot coal. 

“I…  _ maker almighty,”  _ his hand goes awkwardly behind his neck as he turns sharply away. 

Cassandra grabs at my shoulder and peers into my eyes, “that commotion, what happened?”

“I…” I still can't get over this, the pause as they wait for a response, and then my brain stumbling over itself looking for a damn dialogue wheel. “I fell. It was hard to stand… I,”

I look down at my foreign body, my shaking hands. “I'm sorry.”

“Ugh,” Cassandra makes a disgusted noise, clearly directed at herself. “Of course, you are not well, we were not even sure you would live. You should not strain yourself!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, but I'm up and running <3 I made a promise for some art!


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